The present invention relates to skylights, and more particularly to tubular skylights, which include a reflective tube extending downwardly from the dome.
Tubular skylights have acquired increasing popularity as a means of introducing natural light into a building interior. These skylights include a dome mounted on the building roof, a light diffuser mounted in the building ceiling, and a reflective tube interconnecting the dome and the diffuser. Natural light entering the skylight through the dome reflects downwardly through the tube to the diffuser. The tube in a sense acts as a gigantic optical fiber. Typically, the domes are fabricated of acrylic; and the tube is fabricated of reflective aluminum. A tubular skylight of this type is sold by ODL, Incorporated, the assignee of the present invention, under the trademark EZ LIGHT.
The efficiency of such skylights (i.e. the amount of natural light reaching the building interior) is primarily a function of the amount of light passing through the dome into the tube and of the reflective efficiency of the tube. It is desirable to channel or steer as much light as possible downwardly through the tube to illuminate the building interior. One such approach includes positioning a reflector inside the dome above the roof to reflect light downwardly into the tube. A tubular skylight of this type is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 5,099,622, issued Mar. 31, 1992, to Sutton, and entitled "Skylight." However, this approach is relatively complex structurally, relatively expensive, and aesthetically deficient. Further, the reflector may actually decrease the performance of the skylight when no direct sunlight is present, because the reflector blocks a portion of the ambient light.